Still waiting on that apostolic exhortation on the Eucharist. We’re getting tantalizing foretastes, though. Just today B16 met with members of the International Eucharistic Congress, thanking them for their work and expressing his view that there’s been a promising return to Eucharistic Adoration.
Here is last Sunday’s Angelus message for the week of the dead, and here’s the text for yesterday’s Audience, at which he continued his catechesis on St. Paul. What caught my attention this week was His Holiness’ address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. It’s another iteration of the relation between faith and reason of course, but with each audience comes a new angle. He returns to something he’s said before –that Christianity, far from opposing Science, more or less invented it:
The very starting-point of Biblical revelation is the affirmation that God created human beings, endowed them with reason, and set them over all the creatures of the earth. In this way, man has become the steward of creation and God's "helper". If we think, for example, of how modern science, by predicting natural phenomena, has contributed to the protection of the environment, the progress of developing nations, the fight against epidemics, and an increase in life expectancy, it becomes clear that there is no conflict between God's providence and human enterprise. Indeed, we could say that the work of predicting, controlling and governing nature, which science today renders more practicable than in the past, is itself a part of the Creator's plan.And comes swiftly to the point:
Science, however, while giving generously, gives only what it is meant to give. Man cannot place in science and technology so radical and unconditional a trust as to believe that scientific and technological progress can explain everything and completely fulfill all his existential and spiritual needs. Science cannot replace philosophy and revelation by giving an exhaustive answer to man's most radical questions: questions about the meaning of living and dying, about ultimate values, and about the nature of progress itself.
Here’s what the Pope has to say about global warming (not that he mentioned it):
Scientific predictability also raises the question of the scientist's ethical responsibilities. His conclusions must be guided by respect for truth and an honest acknowledgment of both the accuracy and the inevitable limitations of the scientific method. Certainly this means avoiding needlessly alarming predictions when these are not supported by sufficient data or exceed science's actual ability to predict. But it also means avoiding the opposite, namely a silence, born of fear, in the face of genuine problems. The influence of scientists in shaping public opinion on the basis of their knowledge is too important to be undermined by undue haste or the pursuit of superficial publicity.He goes on to speak with confidence about Science’s capacity to address environmental problems –reminding the scientists that they mayn’t do this at the expense of man, at whose service their discipline is.
The Pope met with Swiss bishops this week. Homily for mass is here, tho’ not yet in English, and a summary of his remarks is here. Two portions stuck out:
development causes damage when it is promoted exclusively, without (also) nourishing the soul." "If, alongside aid in favor of developing countries, alongside the teaching of everything man is capable of doing, everything his intelligence has invented and his will made possible, if alongside all that, his soul is not also illuminated ... then we learn only how to destroy. For this reason, I believe, we must reinforce our missionary responsibilities. If we are happy in our faith, we feel obliged to speak of it to others; the extent to which mankind welcomes it is in the hands of God.And keep this in your pocket the next time someone talks to you about “community.”
[ The liturgy] "is not some 'self-expression' of the community which in the liturgy enters center stage, it is rather the community abandoning its 'being itself' to enter the great banquet of the poor, to become part of the great living community in which God Himself nourishes us. ...Which reminds me to highlight two items from my new favorite Bishop –Morlino of Madison. I knew nothing of him prior to hearing him speak at last year’s Catholic Prayer Breakfast, but now he keeps popping up. Here he’s instructing his clergy on same-sex marriage, stem-cell research, etc. He’s having them play a recording from him on these matters at all masses –a bishop who knows how to bishop!
But what brought him to mind was his letter a week ago about some of our liturgical music. It’s good in itself, but I love him for explicitly attacking two of my least favorite “hymns.”
Doesn't God already know perfectly well who we are? It's to Him we sing, no?The question arises, does some of the music routinely sung embody the incorrect overemphasis on the presence of Christ in the assembly, so that people are confused as to the importance of the sacramental intensity of His presence, especially under the signs of bread and wine.
Certain songs come to mind where the lyrics raise a real question for me. For example: "We are called, We are chosen, We are Christ for one another, We are a promise, We are sower, We are seed, We are question, We are creed." Singing that song repeatedly teaches people something, and I am afraid that it is something that I as Bishop do not want to teach them, but we certainly need to begin a dialogue about these matters.
And finally, Insight Scoop has an interview with Fr. Schall on the Soul of the West (we still have one?) And –the man not only writes about a million books a year himself, he’s getting other people to write ‘em, as Fr.Raymond Dennehy says in an interview with NCR (the good one –and here’s my opportunity to plug their revamped site).
And finally-finally: we’re gearing up for Turkey, starting with a reminder that the main reason the Pope’s going there is to meet with the Orthodox Patriarch. Oh. Right.
UPDATE: I love, I love, I love, I love my calendar Pope.
